Little Hope
by EyelessPhoenix
Summary: Separated from his group, Carl Grimes comes upon a little town. Now, even with sanctuary, will Carl be able to survive long enough to find his group or will he die trying?


The group sat in front of a small fire, their hands in front of them. The winter weather was starting to become freezing, the moaning of dead creatures heard out from a distance. Nobody understood why it had happened, it just came out of nowhere. Out of the group though sat an 19 year old girl. Her brown hair which she had now chopped to her shoulders. It was thrown up in a ponytail, so that these things wouldn't grab at it and take a bite out of her neck or shoulder. Her younger brother had sat underneath her arm. They were usually the silent ones of the group, no one else questioned them about it though. She would hunt the food and he would go with her to make sure that they made it back without getting lost in the woods.

There was also about 20 others, but those other 15 of them wouldn't make it, except for the other two who went on raids in the city and such. A blonde haired man, about 20, maybe 21 years of age. Then there was the final one of the group who was actually worth something. She had red hair and green eyes. People tended to call her strawberry, although her name was actually Bristol. She was about 15 years old, about the same age, maybe a little older than the boy. The others in the group though, they either practiced with gun training or they did some of the old style house hold duties such as cook, laundry, and as for the pregnant women of that group, they were told to relax so that the unborn children wouldn't be hurt. They lived in a somewhat nice living system, and found a great little town that they had built fences around so that those terrible creatures on the outside wouldn't get in. They had more than enough food at the moment to feed the town for a little more than a year, which was great because then, they wouldn't have to go out as often, trying to find supplies.

Tonight was a bonfire night though for the people, to celebrate making it through the apocalypse for the second year now. They still stayed pretty quiet to not upset the creatures outside, that lurked everywhere, but they were still loud enough to enjoy themselves. There was the sound of a rock being thrown at the fence which caught the girls attention. At first she decided that it was probably the wind before the noise came up once again. She stood up and started to walk in the direction of the fence. "Arlette, where are you going?," her brother asked. She stood tall in her leader like figure, even though she was technically the leader of the group, and turned towards her brother. "Tyler, that was the second time that a rock has been thrown at the fence tonight. I'm going to check out what it is. Now, you can either come with me or stay behind," she said, before continuing to walk once more. Tyler decided to follow after her, gun in his waistband just in case something did come and try to hurt them.

Arlette finally made it to the fence before calling out. "Who's there,". The sound of someone knocking desperately at the door sounded before she realized that it was an actual human. "Tyler, help me get the fence door open," she said. The two of them started to open the fence just enough for this person to get in. Once this boy was inside, they quickly closed the door slamming the boy against the wall. "Who are you. And also while your at it do you have any weapons on you?,". The boy who looked about 14 or 15, looked up at the intimidating girl. "Yes... I have a gun on me," he said. "She asked you what your name was," Tyler told him. " up, please," Arlette said. "M...My name is Carl... I promise, I'm not going to hurt you or your group," he said. "Do you have a group?," Arlette pressed. "I did, but I got separated from them while running away from the walkers," he said. "The walkers?," Arlette asked. "Yeah, that's what they're called... Walkers, or zombies, either one," she said. Arlette nodded. "I guess we can take him to the group. Show him where he'll be staying. Till we know we can trust him not to do anything, take his weapon," she said. Tyler nodded. "Don't bother trying to leave without permission from me or Tyler, cause if you can't follow that rule, we have watch guards up 24/7 who won't hesitate to put a bullet in ya," she told him.

"So what are you to this group? The leader? The brute?," he asked. "I'm the leader yes. You see, this place has been around since almost the beginning. Some people came by themselves, some of them were in my old group before we founded it. That's who the watch guards are," she told him. "We don't really have a name for the town though. No one has really come up with one, seeing as we're all just relaxing here, living out our lives until something happens, I guess," she said. "So basically you're saying that you don't have any hope of a cure for it?," he asked her. "We have scientists here, as well as doctors, food, water, we have enough to last us a couple of more years before we need to go on another raid," she said. "Wow," he said. "Yup, if we can, within the next few weeks, we'll even have electricity," she said. "Anyways, guys, this is Mason. He'll be staying with us and helping us out with things around here," Arlette said. "But we don't know whether or not we can trust him," an older lady, Helena said. "Exactly, that's why we took all of his weapons away. "He can help out with Laundry, cooking, and cleaning up around here," she responded. "I guess I can live with that," Helena mumbled.

"Yasmine, want to show him to his room for tonight?," Arlette asked. "Sure," she said. "By the way Carl, breakfast is at 8. Better be up by then, you'll need your strength," she said with a small smirk playing on her lips. "Your going to make tomorrow a horrible day for him aren't you," Tyler said. "Oh yeah, we haven't had a newbie for a while now," she said as she watched him be taken to a small apartment that he would be living in.

Carl was sound asleep as 7;30 hit before he had a blow horn blown into his ear, causing him to fall off of the bed. "Mornin' sunshine, you get a nice and good sleep last night?," Tyler said with a laugh. "Man, did you have to be that loud?," he questioned Tyler with a moan to his voice. "Sorry, but it's orders from my sister. Can't disobey her or else she'll go ogre on me. I can't do watch duty again," Tyler told him. "Speakin' of which, it's 7;50, have fun finding the cafe," Tyler said walking out. He rubbed his eyes yawning before standing up and getting dressed into a pair of clothes that was put onto his bed and made his way around the building, trying to find the cafe. He finally found it running in. "2 minutes late, guess you have 2 extra chores to attend to today," Arlette said. The town snickered, remembering when they were in his position, then the snickers were actually because he was late. "Come on Carl, get your breakfast and eat," she told him. He went up to the food table seeing what there was. He grabbed 3 pieces of bacon, 2 eggs, a pancake, and a hash brown, before sitting down in front of Yasmine.

"I see that Arlette is playing the whole newbie game again," she said. "What do you mean?," Carl asked her curiously. "Whenever we get a newbie here, Arlette always has Tyler wake them up late purposefully then leave them to find the cafe by themselves. Usually every newbie comes in late, and however long you go over the time limit, is how many extra chores you have. We haven't had a newbie in a while though, maybe 7 months," she said. Carl nodded. "Either way, she'll probably assign you to helping me out today so you won't have that many chores all in all," she said. "Has she always been this... Rude?," he asked her. "She's not rude, it's just that she doesn't trust you yet. She also lost her dad a few months back on a raid, which left her with the responsibility of being the leader of the group since she's the oldest," Yasmine explained. "Anyways, just wait for her to warm up to you, then you'll see," she said, picking up her empty plate and putting it in the sink.


End file.
